Culture, travel, fashion and culinary delights: the Kosmos pages of Lufthansa Magazin bring you interesting and useful tidbits from around the world

Culture clash

En garde! In the Japanese martial art tessenjutsu, fans are used to parry knives or swords, and also to provoke attacks. Even the Samurai used to use the harmless-looking fan as a secret weapon, its metal ribs sharpened to a point. Potentially deadly, such fans could come in useful on occasions which required that swords be set aside.

Spain

Can you read me? Spanish fan gestures like “Follow me!” (1), “I love you” (2), “I love someone else” (3) were once used to convey secret messages. Some fan researchers claim that they were really just a 19th-century marketing trick, but fans really are great flirt aids, even without the knowledge of a complex secret code.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s novel about a man-made creature was published in 1818 and spawned countless stage and film adaptations. Renowned Gothic scholar Sir Christopher Frayling documents the evolution of this phenomenon in his new book.

Culture clash

Just follow your nose? The sense of smell tends to be undervalued in the West but has a high status in many other cultures:

SMELL THE BABY

The Serer-Ndut people in Senegal believe in reincarnation and that a child’s scent reveals which ancestor has been reborn. The matter is settled if there’s a resemblance.

ACKNOWLEDGE THE NOSE

“How is your nose” is the common greeting used by the Ongee people. Smell is the prime sense for the Andaman islanders in Southeast Asia, and their calendar is dictated by the blossoming periods of certain flowers.

LISTEN TO THE FLOWERS

Smell? Hearing? For the Dogon in Mali these two senses overlap, with language having an odor and flowers a sound. They love the sound/scent of onions, which both sexes rub over their bodies.

Razor sharp

Songs like “Mr. Brightside” and “Human” catapulted The Killers to the higher echelons of independent rock. The band from Las Vegas is touring with its latest – and fifth – album. Catch The Killers on February 27 in Berlin and March 5 in Cologne.